Are You Building Your Own Maginot Line?
I Lost Deals Because I Built the Wrong System First
Between World War I and World War II, France built the Maginot Line. It was an elaborate, expensive defense system along their border with Germany. Concrete fortifications. Underground bunkers. Artillery. It was state-of-the-art for its time.
During the 1930s, the French government invested $3 billion and spent ten years building it.
It was an engineering marvel.
It was impenetrable.
All with one goal: to keep the Germans out.
Construction ended in 1940, just before Germany invaded France. How did they invade despite this massive line of defense?
Simple – the Germans went around the line and invaded through Belgium. The Maginot Line never fired a shot, and France fell in six weeks.
France built the wrong defense system for the war they were about to fight. They prepared for World War I tactics, which were trench warfare and static lines. What they needed was mobility and flexibility. They spent a decade and billions building impressive infrastructure that became completely irrelevant when the actual threat arrived.
The Modern Maginot Line
Here’s why I’m telling you this.
I’ve analyzed hundreds of real estate businesses through the IPP assessment. Fifty-six percent are stuck at the exact same place: Available Capital. They built their own Maginot Line.
They spent months, sometimes years, building the wrong systems. Mailers. CRMs. Broker networks. SOPs. All beautifully organized. And very impressive. Then the big moment comes. They find a deal. But they can’t close it.
Because they have built a capital acquisition system.
They built the wrong defense system for the business they’re actually fighting to build. Deal flow without available capital is like the Maginot Line without mobility. Impressive, expensive, and useless when you actually need it.
The Pattern
I did this myself.
It’s the reason my first two forays into real estate investing, heck, maybe three, failed. I spent months building a deal-finding machine. But when it came time, I couldn’t close. I lost earnest money, due diligence money, time, and, most importantly, my confidence.
Why? I didn’t have a capital system.
And I see this pattern everywhere now. Operators pour their time, money, and energy into acquisition systems. This is what everyone teaches. It feels productive. You’re doing something.
But most of them are fighting the last war.
They’re protecting against a lack of leads, not a lack of funding. They’re building infrastructure before securing the lifeblood of their business — capital.
That’s the real bottleneck in real estate investing. The mailers and deal flow get the attention. Capital gets the result. If your systems bring you deals but your capital system can’t fund them, you are not running an investing business. You are running a very expensive marketing company.
The Framework
This is why sequence matters.
The Investor Priority Pyramid exists for this reason. The base level—Deal Flow—has five core needs. The second one, right after knowing your numbers, is Available Capital.
Not third. Not fourth. Second.
Most operators skip it and jump to deal attraction. They build deal-finding systems before capital systems. Here’s what that looks like in practice:
With the capital system, the Operator finds a deal. Needs $50K. Has a list of 25 potential partners built over six months. Makes six calls. Has the capital committed in 4 days. Deal closes.
Without a capital system, the Operator finds a deal. Needs $50K. Scrambles. Calls everyone they know. Posts in Facebook groups. Pitches at the REIA Meeting. 30 days later: Nothing. The deal dies.
Same deal. Different outcome.
The difference? Capital system.
It’s not about how many deals you can find. It’s about how many you can afford to close.
The Action
Take a hard look at your business right now. Do you have a deal flow system but no capital system? Have you built impressive infrastructure without securing funding sources? If so, you might be building your own Maginot Line. It’s impressive, expensive, and irrelevant when it matters most.
What is your business’s vital need? The IPP assessment takes 5 minutes. It’ll show you if you’re building impressive infrastructure in the wrong order.
Don’t lose deals because you built your Maginot Line first.
Take the assessment. Here’s the link.
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